Becker's Hospital Review: California Hospital Nurses OK Labor Deal
Registered nurses at San Leandro and Alameda hospitals in California have approved a new five-year labor contract. The agreement covers more than 380 nurses at the hospitals, according to their union, the California Nurses Association. It includes a 25% pay increase, at minimum, over the life of the contract. (Gooch, 4/4)

Becker's Hospital Review: Scammers Posing As California Health System Staff To Steal Patient Data
Truckee, Calif.-based Tahoe Forest Health System is warning patients about a recent wave of scam attempts in which fraudsters are impersonating healthcare staff to obtain personal information. While the health system said there has been no breach or unauthorized access to its technical infrastructure, it is actively monitoring the fraudulent activity and collaborating with state, federal and cybersecurity experts, according to an April 3 news release. (Diaz, 4/4)

Becker's Hospital Review: Keck Medicine Opens Radiation Therapy Center
Los Angeles-based USC Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center has opened a new radiation therapy and imaging center in Newport Beach, Calif. The Keck Medicine of USC-Newport Beach Radiation Oncology and Imaging center is equipped with CT scanners, positron emission tomography CT imaging and two linear accelerators, according to an April 3 news release from the health system. (Gregerson, 4/4)

Becker's Hospital Review: 5 Ways Smidt Heart Institute Harnesses AI For Better Patient Results
Los Angeles-based Smidt Heart Institute at Cedars-Sinai is going all in on artificial intelligence to improve heart care, patient experience and provider wellbeing. Here are just five ways the facility is harnessing AI to get results. (Taylor, 4/4)

Becker's Hospital Review: How 1 Chief Medical Officer Aligns Physicians On Hospital Strategy
During medical school, Anjali Rao, MD, developed a keen interest in the complex systems that underpin the delivery of high-quality patient care — a passion that ultimately guided her toward hospital leadership. In March, after more than 15 years of leadership service at Redwood City, Calif.-based Dignity Health Sequoia Hospital, Dr. Rao was named its chief medical officer. She began her clinical OB-GYN practice at the 208-bed hospital in 2006 and went on to establish its OB hospitalist program. (Carbajal, 4/4)

Becker's Hospital Review: What's Retaining Gen Z Healthcare Workers?
Amid ongoing staffing shortages and shifting workforce demographics, hospitals and health systems [including Duarte-based City of Hope] are honing recruitment and retention strategies tailored to their employees’ needs. Generation Z employees are no exception. As the newest generation entering the workforce — born between 1997 and 2012, making the oldest members 28 — Gen Z employees bring a distinct set of values to their work. They are often described as prioritizing work-life balance, seeking meaningful career development and being digitally fluent. (Kuchno, 4/4)

Becker's Hospital Review: Reimbursement Hurdles Faced By Orthopedic Surgeons
As payer denials and prior authorization hurdles continue to rise, orthopedic surgeons continue to face pressures to getting paid. Two surgeons [including Hrayr Basmajian of Pomona Valley Hospital Medical Center] connected with Becker’s to share the biggest reimbursement challenges they are currently facing. (Wallace, 4/4)

Becker's Hospital Review: AI Matches, Sometimes Beats Physicians: Cedars-Sinai Study
In a study of 461 virtual primary care visits at Los Angeles-based Cedars Sinai, AI-powered clinical recommendations were often rated as superior to those made by physicians, according to research published April 4 in Annals of Internal Medicine. Researchers from Tel Aviv University, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center and K Health evaluated the use of K Health’s clinical AI platform at Cedars-Sinai Connect, the health system’s virtual primary and urgent care clinic. (Twenter, 4/4)

Los Angeles Times: Los Angeles Homeless Chief To Resign After The County Guts Her Agency
Va Lecia Adams Kellum, the head of the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, announced her resignation Friday, just days after the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors voted to strip her agency of more than $300 million and hundreds of workers. In a letter delivered to the agency’s board of commissioners Friday afternoon, Adams Kellum said that due to the board’s decision to shift key responsibilities from LAHSA to the county, “now is the right time for me to resign as CEO.” (Smith and Zahniser, 4/4)

San Francisco Chronicle: What Data Shows About Drug Use, Homelessness In S.F. Mission
Catherine Villanueva has lived near 16th and Mission streets for 13 years. While the neighborhood has long struggled with homelessness and open-air drug use, she said conditions have deteriorated lately. Last month, for example, her car was broken into for the first time. ... Villanueva, 53, is not the only one feeling that way. Residents and merchants in San Francisco’s 16th and Mission corridor say they are inundated with increased public disturbances and disorder related to homelessness, open-air drug markets and illegal vending. Calls for service in the area, including calls to 911 and 311, have reached a decade high, a Chronicle analysis found. (Echeverria and Angst, 4/7)

San Diego Union-Tribune: A Tenth Of East County Fires May Have Involved Homeless Encampments, Data Show
First responders in East County estimate that 185 fires in recent years involved homeless encampments, amounting to more than a tenth of all blazes throughout three neighboring cities. (Nelson, 4/6)

Bay Area News Group: As Temperature Records Shattered, Santa Clara County Saw Huge Increase In Heat Deaths Last Year
Last year was the hottest yet recorded around the world, and in Santa Clara County 38 deaths were determined to be heat-related, after several heat waves brought daily high temperatures in San Jose above 100° in July, and again in October. (Rowan, 4/7)

NBC News: Rare Virus That Killed Gene Hackman's Wife Linked To 3 Deaths In California Town
Public health officials in California confirmed that three people in the town of Mammoth Lakes have died from hantavirus, which killed actor Gene Hackman’s wife in February. In a statement Thursday, health officials in Mono County reported a third death from hantavirus pulmonary syndrome in the rural town in the Eastern Sierra region, calling the situation “tragic” and “alarming.” Hantavirus is a relatively rare virus that rodents — typically mice — spread to humans from their urine, droppings and saliva. (Chow, 4/5)

Politico: Kennedy Announces Support For Measles Vaccine Amid Outbreak
Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who spent years promoting debunked theories and sowing doubts about the safety of vaccines, on Sunday promoted the measles shot. “The most effective way to prevent the spread of measles is the MMR vaccine,” Kennedy wrote on the social media website X. (Nguyen, 4/6)

The New York Times: Two Liquid Egg Brands Recalled Over Bleach Contamination Risk
Thousands of pounds of liquid egg substitutes sold under two popular brand names have been recalled because of the potential risk of contamination with a cleaning solution, federal safety regulators said. Cargill Kitchen Solutions in Lake Odessa, Mich., recalled about 212,268 pounds of products under its Egg Beaters and Bob Evans labels because they may contain a cleaning solution with sodium hypochlorite, also known as bleach, the Agriculture Department’s Food Safety and Inspection Service said on March 28. (Diaz, 4/6)

San Francisco Chronicle: Bay Area Patients Among First In U.S. To Receive Parkinson's Treatment
At first, Deb Zeyen, 77, had trouble opening and closing her left hand as she spoke with UCSF neurologist Simon Little on March 24. But as a nurse practitioner tapped on a tablet atop a nearby table, Zeyen’s movements sharpened and sped up. Her voice also grew louder. The tablet was wirelessly connected to a medical device implanted near Zeyen’s collarbone. Wires from the device, a flat oval that fits in the palm of a hand, extended to her brain, both for monitoring signals and sending electrical pulses. (Lee, 4/5)

San Francisco Chronicle: S.F. University Offers First Psychedelic Studies Bachelor's Degree
The 1960s counterculture is synonymous with San Francisco, a city where hippies roamed the Haight, tripped on acid and fled the law. And so it is fitting that San Francisco will again run counter to the mainstream this fall when a local university unveils the nation’s first bachelor’s degree in psychedelic studies. (Asimov, 4/6)

CNN: Why Are Sea Lions Attacking People In The Waters Off California’s Coast?
Along some 70 miles of Southern California coastline, usually curious and playful sea lions are attacking humans in the water. The animals are being poisoned by the ocean they live in, experts say, citing reports of sick sea lions at unprecedented levels. And many are dying. (Elam, 4/7)

Stat: Medicare Gets A Big (Unofficial) Surprise: A 17-Year Extension On When It’ll Run Dry
Medicare’s financial future unexpectedly got a lot rosier, at least according to some federal budget wonks. The Congressional Budget Office recently published its long-term predictions of the federal budget and buried a big surprise for people who follow the Medicare program. The government’s primary piggy bank that pays for Medicare benefits won’t be depleted until 2052 — 17 years later than what CBO analysts predicted last year. (Herman, 4/5)

The New York Times: Trump Rejects Proposal For Medicare To Cover Wegovy And Other Obesity Drugs
The Trump administration on Friday rejected a Biden plan that would have required Medicare and Medicaid to cover obesity drugs and expanded access for millions of people. Under the law that established Medicare’s Part D drug benefits, the program was forbidden from paying for drugs for “weight loss.” But the Biden administration’s proposal last November had attempted to sidestep that ban by arguing that the drugs would be allowed to treat the disease of obesity and its related conditions. (Sanger-Katz and Robbins, 4/4)

Modern Healthcare: CMS Punts On Medicare Advantage AI Prior Authorization Policy
President Donald Trump’s first Medicare Advantage rule tabled decisions on plans' use of artificial intelligence and marketing oversight while dropping a proposal to cover obesity drugs. In the Medicare Advantage and Part D final rule for 2026 issued Friday, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services delayed final decisions on expanding what counts as Medicare marketing, setting stricter network adequacy requirements, and determining the role of artificial intelligence in prior authorization. (Early, 4/4)

Modern Healthcare: HHS Layoffs Risk Dual Medicare-Medicaid Pay Model Transitions
HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced a massive departmental overhaul and layoffs, including staffers in the Medicare-Medicaid Coordination Office who began receiving notices at the beginning of the week. Among other areas, those staffers were responsible for working with states to wind down a complicated demonstration, the Financial Alignment Initiative, that covers certain people dually eligible for Medicare and Medicaid in several states. (Early, 4/4)

San Diego Union-Tribune: San Diego To Take A $40 Million Hit In Federal Funding For Public Health
An anticipated $40 million cut in federal public-health funding has county officials scrambling to preserve programs that cover everything from wastewater testing to infectious disease investigations in San Diego County’s long-term care facilities. (Sisson, 4/5)

CBS News: RFK Jr. To Lay Off More NIH Employees Amid HHS Restructuring, Officials Say
More employees at the National Institutes of Health are expected to be laid off in the coming days, multiple federal officials say, less than a week after an initial wave of cuts gutted many offices within the health research agency. The NIH was initially supposed to lose about 1,200 scientists, support staff and other officials as a result of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s restructuring. It is unclear how many additional employees will be targeted for cuts. (Tin and Gounder, 4/4)

Politico: RFK Jr. Said HHS Would Rehire Thousands Of Fired Workers. That Wasn't True
When HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said Thursday that he planned to rehire 20 percent of the employees he’d just terminated, he insisted such a move was “always the plan.” Turns out, it wasn’t the plan at all. HHS has no intention of reinstating any significant number of the staffers fired as part of a mass reduction-in-force on Tuesday, despite Kennedy’s assertion that some had been mistakenly cut, a person familiar with the department’s plans told POLITICO. (Cancryn, 4/4)

Axios: Key Safety Hotlines Disrupted By HHS Cuts
Teams manning government hotlines for reporting adverse events from foods, supplements and cosmetics, and call centers that provide other essential safety information were among the thousands of Health and Human Services Department employees laid off last week. The Food and Cosmetic Information Center fields tens of thousands of calls annually from consumers and industry representatives about recalls, nutritional information and food business requirements, along with unintended health consequences from using FDA-approved products. (Goldman and Snyder, 4/6)

Los Angeles Times: Trump Is Gutting Environmental Programs. It Will Be Costly For Americans
The Trump administration’s slash-and-burn approach to federal programs has delivered a considerable hit to the nation’s environment, but experts say its plans to repeal hard-won protections for clean air and water will also directly jeopardize Americans’ health — and their wallets. Two new reports from environmental watchdog groups outline how the administration’s recent regulatory rollbacks, cuts to climate programs and promotion of fossil fuel production will significantly increase the cost of living for millions of people and bring about hundreds of thousands of premature deaths. (Smith, 4/5)